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Monday, July 1, 2013

On anniversaries, exhibitions and vintage paints

On Friday Kim and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary. Kim happened to have the day off, we happened to have a kid-free morning and so we popped into the cafe where I'm going to have a little show of my paintings soon. We had a delicious breakfast, while I stared at the walls and began quietly panicking about whether or not I will have enough work in time. It was relaxing. Really.

The exhibition is in 6-7 weeks (the exact date isn't yet confirmed) and I still have quite a bit of work to do, which I tried to put out of my mind for the weekend. Because it was our anniversary festivus!

Saturday we saw The Great Gatsby at Gold Class. It will literally be the only film we see at the cinema this year so why not opt for reclining armchairs and being served food whilst reclining? I loved the film: it was so extravagant and excessive. So over-the-top. So Baz.

And the last thing that made this weekend tops was my vintage paint box find. It's a genuine 'Winsor & Newton' oils box which I plan to clean up to store my watercolour tubes. I'll keep the watercolour pans (which came in a great little vintage cigarette tin) and reactivate them to paint with. And I love the little pods of powdered paint for 'photographic tinting'. My grandmother was a photo colourist and although these weren't the same kind of materials she used, they're obviously from the same era.

I wonder who owned this kit? What did they paint?

I decided to draw it before I got rid of the old oil paints which it's filled with. But I don't know that I really captured it the way I wanted to. I feel the beginnings of a new drawing project percolating. I've got some ideas. But I have to put them aside for the next little while. I've got some painting to do...